Crawl Space

by Jesse Jacobs

In the basement, through the appliances and past the veil that separates realities, lies a rainbow-hued world where a group of kids have found retreat from their suburban mundanity with a coterie of iridescent creatures. But in the fraught realm of adolescence, can friendship survive the appeal of the surreal?Jesse Jacobs was born in Moncton, NB, and now draws comics and things from his home in Hamilton, ON. In 2009, his books Small Victories and Blue Winter were short listed at the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning. He received the Gene Day Award for Canadian Comic Book Self-Publisher of 2008. Even the Giants (AdHouse, 2011) marked his major publishing debut after several award-winning, self-published titles, and his work has appeared in the acclaimed Latvian comics anthology š!, as well as the 2012 edition The Best American Comics edited by Françoise Mouly and published Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He made his debut with Koyama Press in 2012 with the psychedelic creation myth By This Shall You Know Him, which was followed by the trippy take on nature versus nurture, Safari Honeymoon in 2014.

Crawl Space Review

May 21, 2017

Serena

Is it possible to give this a 10/5?

April 11, 2017

Robert

This is Jesse Jacobs' third book with Koyama Press and his third slam dunk. His drawings are hypnotically intricate, and his wittily surreal explorations of systems of nature & different planes of reality are always intriguing. He's got that Vision Thing happening, in a big way.

The rainbow cover of Crawl Space attracted me at TCAF so I asked the dude manning the table to pitch it to me. He said it was kinda like a Narnia story where you go through a laundry machine instead of a wardrobe, and you end up in a bit of an acid trip alternative world with a lot of rainbows. Sold. What is Crawl Space about? Basically that pitch. A teenage girl finds this strange new world, she invites some friends, that doesn't go well, but she seems to reach some new form of enlightenment. T The rainbow cover of Crawl Space attracted me at TCAF so I asked the dude manning the table to pitch it to me. He said it was kinda like a Narnia story where you go through a laundry machine instead of a wardrobe, and you end up in a bit of an acid trip alternative world with a lot of rainbows. Sold. What is Crawl Space about? Basically that pitch. A teenage girl finds this strange new world, she invites some friends, that doesn't go well, but she seems to reach some new form of enlightenment. The artwork is is a vibrant, twisting explosion of weird, and the book is worth buying for the visuals alone. Seriously, just find a copy and read it and enjoy the sensory overload!

"The first of several incredible full-page panels go all-in on the psychedelic foundation of the book. From the first time I saw it, I felt that the art on this single page told me the majority of what I needed to know about the pages ahead of it, from the variety of shapes to the simple repetition of the colors. The fading in the middle distance made me think that Kerouac and Wonka got together to build a dream."FULL REVIEW UP SOON AT HEAVY FEATHER REVIEW

This is a beautifully drawn and colored graphic novel. The intricate art work compliments the story of discovering beauty and becoming obsessed with it. The story also touches about how people can destroy beauty with their selfishness. A quick read with amazing art work.

Jesse Jacobs delivers a thought-provoking excursion into the depths of psychedelic. The drawings/colors are beautiful and the story is fascinating, if not quite up to par with his other comics from Koyama. The ending is truly chilling.

May 17, 2017

Derek Parker

I'm a fan of Jacobs's comics, but I must say that this one had a bigger impact on me than the earlier books. Crawl Space is more sophisticated, both visually and narratologically. It's a work that helps instruct you how to approach it.

June 2, 2017

Comics Alternative

http://comicsalternative.com/episode-...

May 14, 2017

Scotto Moore

The story of what happens when school kids discover they can physically enter the DMT realm via a portal in a washing machine. No really.

May 19, 2017

Eric

A bit predictable and maybe too serious in its didactic message towards the proper spiritual use of psychedelic substances. It's still fairly good and tries some interesting things, though I'm not sure how successful it is in accomplishing its purpose. Despite my initial impression, by the time I finished it, I found it to be less quirky and sort of flat, literally and figuratively, compared to what we have seen from Jesse before. I get what Jesse was shooting for with this, but I didn't feel li A bit predictable and maybe too serious in its didactic message towards the proper spiritual use of psychedelic substances. It's still fairly good and tries some interesting things, though I'm not sure how successful it is in accomplishing its purpose. Despite my initial impression, by the time I finished it, I found it to be less quirky and sort of flat, literally and figuratively, compared to what we have seen from Jesse before. I get what Jesse was shooting for with this, but I didn't feel like it reached any particular destination other than relaying the most obvious of messages, such as -don't freely give out LSD to your drunk highschool friends at parties-. Stuff like that. I just did't find the cleverness here that I found with Safari Honeymoon or By This Shall You Know Him.